Урок английского языка "William Shakespeare. Great Unknown"

Урок можно проводить в старших классах на неделе английского языка. Необходимо оформить доску, повесить портреты, подготовить тексты к раздаче. Ученики старших классов хорошо знакомы с творчеством Шекспира. В представленном уроке на примере художественного фильма освещается одна из версий по поводу авторства знаменитого драматурга.

T: Good morning, everybody! I’m glad to see you. Dear students, you can see guests at our today’s lesson. Don’t be excited and try to show your best!

 And our boys will help me to start our lesson.

Two boys recite a fragment of the play:

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T: Students, have you recognized the most popular play in the English language?

Right! It’s Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”. Why is this speech so famous?

Possible answers: Because of the problem of “to be or not to be”, the problem of life’s inequalities and injustices, of the sufferings of the innocent. There are things that touch all, that always interest mankind.

T: Shakespeare is the subject of our today’s discussion. Look at the blackboard, there are questions you are to answer in the end of the lesson:

What new have I known today?

What has surprised me most of all?

Ok! Let’s start! SHAKESPEARE! Look at this surname, how many words does it consist of? How can we translate them into our native language? (Потрясающий копьём). And he really ‘shaked’ the world not with a speare, but with his lines.

Have a look at these quotations from Shakespeare and comment on them:

“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit”

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt’’

Now, I’ll divide you into two groups. Think of your own situations that can represent one of the quotations. Play them out. The other group should guess which quotation it is.

The next task is to look through the following two texts, be ready to answer my questions:

Text 1

Interesting facts

It isn't known what he looked like. No portraits of Shakespeare were ever painted while he was still alive. Therefore, there is some uncertainty as to his appearance.

William Shakespeare was a playwright.

He wrote 154 sonnets and 38 plays.

No one knows his actual birthday. He was baptised April 26, 1564. William Shakespeare died on (or about) his birthday, aged 52.

Shakespeare's father was a glover.

Shakespeare did not go to college. His formal education in his birthplace of Stratford - on - Avon would have ended when he was around 14 years old.

Shakespeare's wife was eight years older than he was, and she still survived him.

His Marriage was scandalous for the time. Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was three months pregnant when they got married. He was 18 and she was 26. All of his grandchildren died childless. Shakespeare has no living descendants.

Shakespeare never published any of his plays because he did not own the right to publish them. As with all other playwrights of the time, the acting company owned the right to publish plays, not the author.

He and his partners built Two Globe Theatres. The first Globe Theatre was burned down to the ground on June 29, 1613.

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William Shakespeare. Great Unknown.

T: Good morning, everybody! I’m glad to see you. Dear students, you can see guests at our today’s lesson. Don’t be excited and try to show your best!

And our boys will help me to start our lesson.

Two boys recite a fragment of the play:

T: Students, have you recognized the most popular play in the English language?

Right! It’s Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”. Why is this speech so famous?

Possible answers: Because of the problem of “to be or not to be”, the problem of life’s inequalities and injustices, of the sufferings of the innocent. There are things that touch all, that always interest mankind.

T: Shakespeare is the subject of our today’s discussion. Look at the blackboard, there are questions you are to answer in the end of the lesson:

• What new have I known today?

• What has surprised me most of all?

Ok! Let’s start! SHAKESPEARE! Look at this surname, how many words does it consist of? How can we translate them into our native language? (Потрясающий копьём). And he really ‘shaked’ the world not with a speare, but with his lines.

Have a look at these quotations from Shakespeare and comment on them:

“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit”

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt’’

Now, I’ll divide you into two groups. Think of your own situations that can represent one of the quotations. Play them out. The other group should guess which quotation it is.

The next task is to look through the following two texts, be ready to answer my questions:

Text 1

Interesting facts

• It isn't known what he looked like. No portraits of Shakespeare were ever painted while he was still alive. Therefore, there is some uncertainty as to his appearance.

• William Shakespeare was a playwright.

• He wrote 154 sonnets and 38 plays.

• No one knows his actual birthday. He was baptised April 26, 1564. William Shakespeare died on (or about) his birthday, aged 52.

• Shakespeare's father was a glover.

• Shakespeare did not go to college. His formal education in his birthplace of Stratford-on-Avon would have ended when he was around 14 years old.

• Shakespeare's wife was eight years older than he was, and she still survived him.

• His Marriage was scandalous for the time. Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was three months pregnant when they got married. He was 18 and she was 26. All of his grandchildren died childless. Shakespeare has no living descendants.

• Shakespeare never published any of his plays because he did not own the right to publish them. As with all other playwrights of the time, the acting company owned the right to publish plays, not the author.

• He and his partners built Two Globe Theatres. The first Globe Theatre was burned down to the ground on June 29, 1613.

• Some People believe he didn't write all of his plays. Nearly 50 candidates have been proposed, and thousands of books written, on the question of the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. However, there is more evidence that he wrote his own work than there is that he didn't.

• Shakespeare was also an Actor.

• All his plays cast men only even for women's parts.

• 400 years after his death there were 15 million pages of him on google, 135 million for god, 2.7 million for Elvis Presley, and 14.7 for George W. Bush.

• Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was arrested for plotting against Queen Elizabeth I.

Text 2

Film review – Anonymous (2011)

The Release of Roland Emmerich's Anonymous caused a row in the media and academic circles because it supports the view that William Shakespeare was not the author of the plays and sonnets.

The Story

Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, is presented as the real author of the plays we now attribute to Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare, nothing more than a fame-greedy actor in this film, becomes the Earl’s stooge. He willingly puts his names to the plays because it would have been disgraceful for a man of De Vere’s position to be associated with the London stage.

Did De Vere Really Write Shakespeare?

The idea that De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, actually wrote the plays we now attribute to Shakespeare is nothing new, but the idea has never really been embraced in popular culture.

The UK tabloid press recognized that the film presents a reductionist view of history and doesn’t tackle the basic facts that disqualify De Vere as the real author. Namely that:

De Vere died in 1604. Shakespeare’s last play was written in around 1612.

No documentary evidence connects De Vere to the plays.

The quality of De Vere’s poetry published under his name is inferior when compared to Shakespeare’s.

Questions:

• Who was Shakespeare?

• Are there many portraits of Shakespeare?

• What education did he have?

• Was he married?

• How many children did he have?

• What theatre did he act in?

• Was he the author of all these plays? There’s a film about Shakespeare, what point of view does it represent and why?

Well done!!! Now let’s turn to the questions set at the beginning of the lesson.

Hometask. Comment on the following: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”

Marks for the lesson.